Chapter 23 Cartier
CARTIER
Ivana’s eyes are closed when the door opens, shushing across the carpet as if the visitor is trying hard not to disturb us.
I never thought it was possible to experience so many overwhelming emotions in such a short space of time and remain lucid.
But despite my heart morphing into a battering ram and trying to beat its way out of my rib cage, I follow Yuri Asimov’s return with unprecedented clarity.
I’d hoped that the guards would return with medical assistance for Ivana.
But as that hope fades, survival instinct and the need to protect the woman bleeding out on the floor takes over. She protected me, and now it’s my turn to repay the favor.
Yuri is only here because of me. I’m the common denominator in this scenario. Take me out of the equation, out of Andrej’s life, and Ivana wouldn’t be hurt, and we’d all still be in Chicago going about our lives with ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ playing on repeat inside our heads.
I crawl in front of her, shielding her from his view. My hands are bloody. I’m kneeling in the blood saturating the carpet, but this only strengthens my resolve. Especially when he closes the door behind him and raises the gun to aim it at my chest.
“What do you want?” My voice is surprisingly calm.
Weeks ago, I freaked out about giving a speech in front of the mayor, and now … here I am facing a man with a gun as if he came for a chat that’s a little inconvenient right now.
“I thought I made it clear when we first met, Cartier. I wanted your help. Together, we could have taken down your parents’ killers. We’re family, you and I. We—”
“I am not your family.”
I can hear Ivana’s gurgling breaths behind me, and I know that we’re running out of time. Somehow, I need to convince Yuri to let us go, to let me get Ivana the help that she needs, but I’m acutely aware that he’s the one holding the gun.
Ivana has a gun though. She tried to give it to me, but I put it down. I should’ve realized then that I’d need it.
I don’t want to draw his attention to her, but I need to find it.
“Biologically, I’m the only family you have left.” His mouth does that twitchy thing that doesn’t quite resemble a smile. “You’re an Asimov by birth.”
I think about the people in the photograph. My biological parents. The people I have no memories of but whose blood runs through my veins. Had they not been killed when I was a baby, I’d have grown up a printzessa. The daughter of a mafia boss, just like Gianna.
But Gianna isn’t a bad person.
They’re not bad people, Cartier.
Her words still echo inside my head. She’s right: Leonid and Andrej are not bad people even though they understand the language of guns and violence.
But this man…
Yuri Asimov is nothing like them. I sensed it when I met him in the café before he even asked me to help him take down the Ivanovs. His energy is cold and deadly, where Andrej’s is hot and alive. They might both be Bratva, but that is where the similarities end.
“If being an Asimov means standing back and remaining silent while an innocent woman dies, then I’m grateful that my name is Black.”
A puff of air escapes his nostrils as if he finds my comment amusing. “Innocent?” He gestures at Ivana with the gun in his hand. “You’re talking about the woman who helped me to track you down.” His eyes darken, and the glint of amusement in them is all for me.
I can imagine Yuri Asimov as the school bully who hurts the kids who don’t fit in, for the sheer fucking pleasure of proving that he can. Because deep down, he’s an insecure younger brother who would never have been Pakhan if my father had lived.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I don’t drop eye contact. “She saved my life.”
“She handed you to me on a plate.” His voice has grown the tiniest bit shriller.
Did he expect me to jump up and walk away with him because Ivana was his accomplice? The Bratva might be his world, but he knows nothing about people.
He knows nothing about me, and I feel a huge flush of gratitude that I wasn’t handed over to his care when I was a child.
“I don’t care. She doesn’t deserve to die like this. So, if that’s all you came back to say, I think we’re done here.”
I turn around to face Ivana, whose face is deathly pale.
Her lips are cracked and blue, blood still collecting in the corners of her mouth.
Her breathing is shallow, her chest barely moving.
For a moment, I block Yuri Asimov from my thoughts, forgetting that I’ve turned my back on him while he has a gun in his hand.
Then, his voice breaks through my very real fear that Ivana will die if I don’t get help soon. “You leave me no choice, Cartier.”
Ice slithers down my spine.
My eyes drift to Ivana’s hand. To the gun that her fingers have found their way back to, now covered in her blood. Then, a tiny glimmer of movement snags my attention near the bookcase at the rear of the library.
What was it? A draft from the window catching the pages of a book? A spider?
“I hoped that you would have more sense than to fall for their lies, but I can see that I’m too late,” Yuri says.
“Their lies?” My voice chooses now to start playing hide-and-seek.
The bookcase is moving. Slowly. Silently. Surely. A millimeter at a time so as not to alert Yuri Asimov. My heart stops trying to batter a hole through my chest and starts fluttering like it already knows who’s behind the Gothic bookcase hiding the secret entrance.
I need to keep my uncle talking. If that’s even who he is.
I don’t stand up. Instead, I place my hand over Ivana’s and pray that she can feel it. Or that she can hear the conversation. I want her to know that I’m here for her. I want her to know that I don’t care what she did, I won’t leave her here to die.
I face him, shifting my upper body so that he can’t see the gun underneath Ivana’s hand.
“Why should I believe you?”
His eyes flicker around the room, and I hold my breath. Please don’t let him notice that the bookcase has moved. Please…
Then, “You’re my niece. I promised my brother that I would look out for you. You’re my own flesh and blood, Cartier. You remind me so much of my brother.” If he is trying to inject some sincerity into his voice, it doesn’t work.
With Ivana’s cold hand in mine, and her blood soaking through my sweatpants, it takes my brain a couple of beats to process what Yuri said.
“When did you promise my father that you would take care of me?”
I’m trying to visualize the scene. Did it take place in my parents’ home after they were shot? Or did Yuri manage to take them to a hospital to try to save them? Perhaps the conversation took place before they were brutally murdered if they sensed that they were in danger.
But I can see in his eyes that this is more information than he’d wanted to reveal.
“The day that he was killed.” He doesn’t sound quite so confident now though. “What does it even matter? He was my brother. You’re his daughter. He’d be clawing his way out of his grave if he knew that you were sleeping with the enemy.”
“It matters to me.” I can’t hear Ivana’s shallow breaths, and every second that ticks by is a second closer to losing her. Because of me. “I want to know how they died.”
The queasiness in my stomach almost makes me gag. I can’t be sick. Ivana needs me.
“They were tortured. They didn’t die quickly, if that’s what you’re asking. They’d have felt every slice, every deadly wound. My brother, your father, would’ve been forced to watch his wife die first.”
I shouldn’t do it, but I can’t help forcing an image into my head of Andrej torturing my parents. Hurting my mom while my dad watched, powerless to save her.
And that’s when I know for certain that he would never be guilty of such a cold-hearted crime for the sake of a longstanding family feud set in motion by their ancestors.
“Who killed them?” I blurt out the question like there was a fuse lit beneath it.
“You still need to ask?” His eyes narrow. “Do you think I’d have followed you halfway around the world for a hunch that it might’ve been—”
“Who?” I cut him off. I’m trying to unfurl Ivana’s fingers from around the gun without him noticing, but it’s slick with blood and keeps slipping out of reach.
A click from somewhere behind me sends my pulse galloping in a different direction. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and I have to keep swallowing to stop myself from vomiting onto the carpet.
Yuri hears it too. With the weapon held at chest height in front of him, he swings his arms to my right like a robot moving automatically. I watch his gaze come into focus. Watch the information travel from his brain to his hand. Watch the slightest pressure on the trigger.
Then, the weapon flies from his hand and skitters across the carpet.
Red splatters the wall and the door, and I feel something wet land on my face.
It feels like raindrops. But Yuri is clutching his right arm against his chest, his eyes flitting frantically between the gun on the floor and the person emerging from the bookcase, and I can’t tell how many fingers he is missing because of the blood…
“Answer the question!”
Andrej’s voice carries straight to my core, and I want to throw myself at him, wrap my arms around his neck, and tell him how much I love him.
But Ivana’s finger touches mine, and I lean over her, willing her to open her eyes and tell me that she’s going to be alright, that it isn’t as bad as it looks.
Her eyes are still closed, and I realize that it was my imagination playing tricks on me.
The blood is spreading. I’ll never be able to erase the metallic smell from my consciousness for as long as I live.
Andrej approaches us. Our eyes meet, and the familiar spark of electricity fires up. But it’s quickly erased by the blood seeping through his sweater.
He’s hurt!